My final verdict for
Avatar the Last Cockbender:
It's okay
It's by no means a Cowboy Bebop, but it's also not a One Piece. It's at its best when it's just copy-pasting scenes from the cartoon, but whenever the writers have to change/adjust stuff it's noticably worse and sometimes just makes the lore more confusing.
Probably the worst 'tism of the writers (which will make or break your viewing experience) is their obsession with forced expository dialogue. That the original cartoon is more subtle and expects a higher IQ from its audience is fucking hilarious.
I actually
did spot a black guy in this. It's was some advisor/officer who stood next to Ozai in one scene
I'm overall happy with the casting choices - except for Azula and her two friends (who had an early appearance in this season). Maybe I'm pampered by watching live-action shit from Japan and Korea where only the most tolerable 3DPD are allowed to act, but these three hoes are just
pudgy. Azula doesn't look nearly as menacing, my waifu Ty Lee looks like a cosplayer, and whatever the pseudo-goth chick was called again looks like a younger Rose Tico. It's like they were actively searching for Asian actresses with the roundest heads.
Probably the most baffling change was the spirit world. They like mixed together all the spirit world stuff from season 1 and introduced Wan Shi Tong early for some reason (without him actually saying his name, also for some reason).
What this effectively boiled down to is that Hei Bai's plot never gets a resolution. He just shows up for one scene, and then the entire spirit world plot gets derailed by an early appearance from Koh.
Admittedly the guy looks pretty creepy as CGI, but he got pretty much
nerfed in this. You know how in the cartoon Aang had to put up a permanent poker face around him because he
will steal your face if you show
any kind of emotion? He doesn't
do that here. He's still a face stealer, but don't ask me if there are any rules for that, 'cause the live-action version doesn't elaborate.
It truly boggles the mind. The cartoon had this great mind game between Aang and Koh involving esoteric spirit laws, and here Koh just kidnaps Aang's friends until he can complete a fetch quest.